The Short Life and Adventures of the 19th Doctor
by FlossSwallower
Summary: To put it simply, ginger and muttonchops. To put it technically, the tale of the 19th incarnation of the last Timelord, the surviving Gallifreyan, etc, etc. But really, ginger and muttonchops is far more appropriate.
1. Ginger and Muttonchops

(So, to summarize, what with the Doctor's new set of regenerations and all, I thought it'd be a good time for me to put forth some of my ideas for the Doctor while not having to be tied down to an already existing incarnation but still able to reference events of the series, perhaps investigate certain unexplored points of the series, etc. If you've opened this, then thank you! If you're going to continue to read, thank you again!)

The Doctor stumbled back. He felt something hard bump into his lower spine, spilled back onto the table, and then quickly slid off the oak and onto the cold, hard floor.

There was a moment of silence.

The Timelord blinked his eyes a few times.

These were new eyes.

Fresh eyes, like those of a baby. Of course, usually the first things the eyes of a baby saw were a lot of bright lights and a rather frisky man/woman in scrubs. Sometimes a barn, perhaps, which could mean a cow. Maybe the smoke-filled insides of a tavern if it was going to live a particularly Oliver Twist-like life. Something that a baby did not, however, first see, was a library full of burning books and tipped-over bookshelves.

"Odd," he muttered, then widened his eyes.

That voice.

The Doctor stumbled to his feet roughly as the fires continued to crackle around him, bottles of Encyclopedia Gallifreyica popping all around him and letting their bottled whispers out into the air.

High-class, that was for sure.

"Odd," he said again, to test the new voice.

He knitted his eyebrows.

Older.

Now that was peculiar, the Gallifreyan thought to himself as yet another bookshelf creaked loudly through the air before crashing with a noise to the ground, when he was young he had looked old and as he grew old he had looked young.

Perhaps this meant he was getting younger?

He grinned at that thought.

He reached his hands up to his face, rubbing his cheeks, and then frowning.

Now that was odd, he thought as an entire walkway crumbled above him, his face was furry.

"My God," he said aloud, in that pompous, older voice, then quickly decided, "No, no, too modern. By the stars."

He shook his head.

"No," he muttered, and let out a low hum.

A chandelier detached itself from the roof and came flying down, shattering into a million pieces of flying, dagger-sharp glass in front of the Doctor. The Timelord threw himself back, onto his knees as he covered his head from the flying debris.

The Doctor looked over his shoulder with wide eyes and raised eyebrows at the mess that had once been an antique chandelier.

"By Jove," he muttered.

He froze.

"By Jove, that's it!" he exclaimed, a smile spreading on his face as he bounced to his feet, "By Jove, that's the word!"

With a cackle, he rubbed his cheeks again and remembered why he'd gotten into the peculiar subject of exclamations in the first place.

His face was furry.

Perhaps he was a dog, he thought as one of those glowing circular things he always had in the walls exploded, but he was an awfully tall dog if so. Perhaps a werewolf.

Could he do that? Turn into a werewolf? That'd be quite a surprise.

"Bark!" he shouted.

No, that didn't sound right.

He dusted himself off and rubbed his cheeks again, exploring the fur.

Were those…

No!

He grinned.

You scallywag..

Muttonchops!

By Jove, great big old furry muttonchops right down the jaw! He'd never had muttonchops before!

"Ha ha!" he exclaimed.

The muttonchop-induced laughter, however, was quickly interrupted when another piece of debris fell by The Doctor.

He turned his head to it, frowning.

"Note to self," he said, in fact, to himself, "Don't regenerate inside the library."

On that note to self uttered to self, the old time-traveler quickly darted forward, leaping over the fallen glass and through the large metal doors leading into the library, which were now stuck half-way open and half-way closed, sparking and buzzing. As the library continued to burn behind him and the lights around him flickered, the Timelord jogged down the corridors. Most of the floor was grates with lights underneath, the corridors themselves tubes with stripes on either side containing more of those small, glowing circular things that he always had.

What were the glowey thingies?

How often he wondered.

A jump through an anti-gravity lift, a dash through two more corridors, a hop, a skip, and a jump later and he had arrived at a door forced shut, dented and sparking and letting loose all kinds of miniature explosions along the edges. The Doctor patted himself down all over the silky blue jacket of his past incarnation before finally finding the sonic screwdriver in an inside pocket. He grinned as his hands found it and whipped it out. Then stopped grinning.

"No, that's simply not proper," he said with a shake of the head, looking at the sonic, which consisted of a kaleidoscope pattern across the shaft with a spiders-web like glowing extension at the top.

The Doctor shook his head again, grumbling a bit before finally letting the old Timelord tech do it's magic on the crackling door, forcing it slowly open. When it was just wide enough, the newly-regenerated Gallifreyan slipped through and continued to dart along his path.

The suit just wouldn't do either. A silk jacket? And a black dress-shirt? What was he, a disco dancer?

He tried to ignore the disco room as he jogged past it, the disco ball lying in shatters on the glowing disco floor.

The Doctor dashed through one last door and into a large room. He quickly hopped up a small set of grated steps, then stopped.

A wild smile spread over the muttonchopped-face.

The console room.

The smile then disappeared as he looked around.

"I don't like it," he muttered.

As if in response, the part of the desktop in front of him then exploded, sending sparks flying and heat deeply into the new face of The Doctor.

"Egad!" he shouted, then grinned again, "There's another good one."

He darted off, to the front doors, shoving the doors open and leaping outside.

Something blinding flew by.

Another explosion.

"DELETE."

"Oh, bloody good idea, Doctor!" the Timelord said, swinging around back into the TARDIS, "Go right back to the place where you just died, eh, old chap, yeah, absolutely royal."

He slammed the doors shut and then paused.

"Such slang," he said, "That's new. Well, not really. I need a language tutor, really."

As yet another burst of light in the TARDIS shook him out of his thoughts, The Doctor turned back to the console.

A flip of the switch.

A pull on the Zigzag Plotter.

Twist on the Helmic Regulator.

A pair of rapid hands, with rapid fingers, flew across the navigations keyboard.

A turn of the dial, a smack of a button, a push of the lever, a twist of the cog, and suddenly that familiar old sound was filling the air and the TARDIS was in motion, far rockier than normal. The Doctor clenched the console as the TARDIS swung with him in it, nearly falling off his feet.

"Ha ha!" he cackled, "Onward!"

Another switch flipped.

The Doctor let go off his grip on the edge, swinging around the triangular console and twisting a few more cogs. As the TARDIS swung yet again, he flew back, knocking into the railing. His hair flopped down in his face.

He gasped.

"Ginger!" he exclaimed, "Ginger and muttonchops! By Jove, everything's going royal here!"

The Doctor cackled again. For the second time that day, his cackle was interrupted, this time by yet another swing of the TARDIS that sent him spilling to his feet and sliding across the metal floor. He quickly hooked his fingers into a grate. He kicked his feet across the floor, struggling to get to his feet. The task was quickly managed when the TARDIS swung back, sending him into a rough front-flip/roll in which he let go of the grate just in time to not break his brand-new fingers. The Doctor stumbled to his feet, hitting the railing again and pushing himself off straight to yet another lever to pull that he quickly swung off of to get to the next flip.

It was from there, as lights continued to explode around him and grates continued to blast up from the ground and fly through the air, that The Doctor manned the console for the next few minutes before the TARDIS made a rough landing on the ground.

All the sound stopped.

There was a moment of silence as the TARDIS sat, halted, in the machine's new destination.

"The first place this face will see," The Doctor muttered.

There was another pop and fizzle from one of the walls' lights.

The Doctor exhaled, leaning off the console and letting go of the technology.

"Ginger and muttonchops," he muttered, the grin spreading over his face again.

He cackled, then abruptly stopped.

"First things first," he said, "New clothes. A new sonic, as well."

He rubbed his cheeks again, still grinning.  
"I could get used to these…"


	2. Tabula Rasa pt 1

The doors of the TARDIS opened and out stepped, well, who else?

The Doctor.

Of course, if it weren't for the great big old time-traveling policebox that he'd just stepped out of, that great big old policebox that had just materialized out of thin air, you wouldn't really be able to tell. For four hundred years now, the universe had grown used to The Doctor. They'd grown used to those blazing green eyes that could flip like light-switches between those of an old, old man, and those of a brash young warrior, and those of a jolly wanderer. They'd grown used to those silky clothes straight out of 20th Century Earth, out of the old 'British' culture as both the confused Socrates had heard him call it and the perplexed Emperor Chjan-Tauk of the planet Constandia had heard him so refer. They'd grown used to his black, curly hair, to the circular kaleidoscope glasses that sat perched on his nose, to those dazzling foreign rings he had on each of his fingers that held a star in their diamonds, to the pocketwatch that hung swinging from his neck and they'd grown used to the large scar across his nose from a rather nasty swordfight with the good King Arthur.

So the question was as follows : Who was this man stepping out of The Doctor's TARDIS?

He certainly wasn't The Doctor.

He was far too Earthlike for one, his fashion was far too out of date. He wore a simple 20th Century Earth suit, modeled off of a poster he'd seen while milling around in the 1920's. It was a simple deep, dark-brown side-seam suit, the shirt underneath white and the tie that disappeared underneath the buttoned vest red with large black and yellow stripes. His hair was puffy and bright orange, a pair of muttonchops tracing down his jawline and over his upper lip. He was older than he had been, but not old, at least in appearance, he looked like he was in about his late thirties in Earth years, although his voice was now of very high-class English accent and made him sound older. In fact, the only three things that made him at all similar to previous incarnation were the time-traveling, the big blue box, and that he still had a pair of circular sunglasses on his nose, although these weren't nearly as trippy as the last pair. They were a deep, dark red, their wide circular shape reaching up to his eyebrows.

"Ah," The Doctor said with a grin as he looked up at the stars through the airtight glass dome, "As good a place as any."

He then looked down and saw the several bewildered faces staring at him. He then looked at the bookshelves throughout the reading room.

"Bah," he muttered, "Another library? Bit repetitive I'd say, eh?"

There was a moment of silence.

The Doctor turned his head towards the addressed library-goer, who stared at him over the back of a comfy recliner.

"I said 'bit repetitive, eh?'" he asked.

"Oh, uh, yes."

"I'd certainly say," The Doctor replied, with a nod, "Anyway, none of you chaps try to break into her this old mother hen here. Not that you could, of course. But don't think about it anyhow, not proper to have those thoughts in your head, that's what my mother always told me when I was just a lad. Of course, then I went and stole a TARDIS."

The librarygoers said nothing, continuing to stare at the rambling Gallifreyan.

"Completely meant to give it back one day, though. Things got complicated, though. Met a bunch of Cybermen, got old and died. Came back, died again. Really, I just kept dying until I didn't. Then I went and died again and all of a sudden my hair was gray and I was dashing around dressed like a magician. Quite odd, I'd say."

The Doctor shook his head.

"Anyway, off with me, royal day," he said, nodded at the librarygoers, and strolled off.

The Doctor continued out of the library, stopping as he stepped out through the front doors into the sprawling marketplace before him. The halls were wide, the glass ceilings standing probably sixty feet up in the air, dozens of bright artificial lights around to keep the space market lit. The sides of every hall were lined with glass windows showing the insides of their shops, big windowsills containing the shop's products, people dressed in costumes to advertise the shop, people handing out fliers for the military or for the shop, etc, etc, and in between every shop (whenever there was a space) were vendors, eagerly struggling to sell sizzling, foreign, spiced food, some of which was still squealing just as much as the vendors were. Bright holoscreens showed moving advertisements on the wall, the voices of all of them intermingling with each other and then intermingling further with the voices of the massive, throbbing throng of people below.

"Oh, a market. Good place to start out," The Doctor said, still grinning, "Tabula rasa, I am. Why not start out at a market?"

The grinning Timelord navigated through the stream of different species, different races, different everything. At one point, as he looked up at a holoscreen, a passing pickpocket reached into the pocket of his jacket. His eyes bulged when his hand went too deep and he almost lost his footing, pulling his hand out and casually strolling off before The Doctor turned his head back. The Timelord momentarily frowned, then shrugged and kept moving.

"I do say now, what's this?"

The vendor turned his stalks towards The Doctor, who had picked up one of the stand's kebabs. The four kebabed eyes swiveled around at a dizzying speed, turning their irises and pupils up to the time traveler.

"Spiced, raw Plutonian hunting dog eyes," the vendor slurped, his four tongues flopping around lazily in the gaping, puckered hole that served as his mouth.

The Doctor lifted the kebab, sniffing it, then wincing and shaking his head. The eyes seemed relieved, and he put them down.

"No thanks. Maybe when they stop moving," The Doctor said.

"I can arrange that," the vendor exhaled.

"No, you've done enough," the Timelord assured him, quickly walking off before those eyes looked at him again.

Something bumped hard into the Gallifreyan as he passed an alleyway. He stumbled back, looking up at the perpetrator and seeing a man in bright yellow and green clothes, dangling with scarves and robes. It was expensive, fitting fashion for the time, all silk and velvet, diamond-studded slippers on his feet, his beard pointed and combed on his pale face.

"Hello, then," he said.

The man stared at him for a moment, staggering back. His eyes were wide and bagged, his face sweaty.

"You alright, chap?" The Doctor asked.

"I-I'm going to die," the man stuttered.

"Really? I just did but a few moments ago. Cybermen. Nasty," The Doctor replied.

The man halted, swaying on his feet. He reached his right hand, which was hidden in an expensive reptilian glove, to his stomach, patting the flowing robes. The Doctor followed the hand, his eyebrows rising when he saw that part of these robes were flowing with something else.

The hand came up, the wealthy man looked at the blood dripping down the scaled glove.

He looked at The Doctor as others in the crowd started to slow, muttering to each other as they noticed the blood.

"I-I-I'm dying!" the man shouted.

And then, of course, the man fell down. Dead.

"Interesting way to start off the day," The Doctor muttered as the crowd began to shout and scream.

He suddenly grinned.

"That rhymed," he said.

-BREAK-

The Sonic hummed as it passed over the large, wide gash, drenching it in bright white light.

"Laser."

The Doctor moved it to another wound.

"Knife."

He moved it over a large bruise.

"Something blunt, perhaps a hammer. Fingers all crushed on either hand. Looks like there's even a mace wound on his thigh, here. He's been peppersprayed as well," The Doctor said.

He exhaled.

"Something cheerful," he said, leaning back, "That's what I wanted. First time out, something cheerful. Some pretty girl in need of rescuing from the Daleks, perhaps a Loch Ness Monster. No, I get a torture victim out in a space market."

"Sir?"

The Doctor looked up at the police officer.

"Oh, yes, quite right. These wounds, they're odd. Some of them are from technology way before this time, a few are far ahead, like this burn in his right shoulderblade that's been going for a few years, that kind of torture technology is quite a bit ahead of you, and then there's a bit here and there from this time, too. He's been drinking liquor, although I'm guessing he was forced to, judging by the various brands from various times far before his birth and far after his recent death," The Doctor said, waving a hand as he explained.

He shook his head.

"Not right, the first thing for a new Sonic to do – examine a dead body. Maybe unlock a door. Unscrew some bolts, for a screwdriver it almost never unscrews," The Doctor rambled.

The new design was reminiscent of an age far past. It was designed heavily off of his first one, which had been, in appearance, quite like a simple penknife. Of course, the new version had many more modes, the switch being able to be pushed up to several new different levels capable of new different things. But otherwise, it was almost identical to his very first Sonic Screwdriver. Just looking at it had made him nostalgic when the new casing had popped out of the console.

"Sir?"

The Doctor looked up at the police officer again.

"Yes, what is it?" he asked.

"Are you quite all right, sir?" the police officer asked.

"Of course. Could use a pipe, though. Could always use a pipe when solving a murder mystery, any kind of mystery, really, but especially a murder mystery. Goes well with the muttonchops, anyway," The Doctor said, and scratched his muttonchops.

The police officer stared at him.

"Well? Off with you, go find a pipe! I could send word to the KinQueeEmperoress, have you beheaded! I say!" The Doctor did, in fact, say.

The police officer shook himself out of his confusion, nodding and quickly hurrying off to find a pipe.

"Some pipe tobacco, too! No use in having a pipe if you can't smoke it!" The Doctor called after him, "Unless you just want something to chew on, I suppose. Eugh. That's rather unpleasant a thought."

-BREAK-

"No! No, please no more!"

"BISMILLAH! WE WILL NOT LET YOU GO!" the hooligans all sang, the old Earth song blasting from some odd, small object sitting on a counter in the corner.

"LET ME GO!" shrilled the main bandit, swinging on a pole, his large coat swinging with him.

"BISMILLAH!" the hooligans cried again.

One of the bandits from behind Luc grabbed him by his hair, which had once been finely groomed but was now drenched in grease, sweat, vodka, and urine, yanking his head back and shoving more Dom Perignon down his throat, 17th Century. The bottle dropped and a 41st Century bottle of Paun-Terrier flowed down his tongue.

The bandits cackled as the long-dead voice of Freddy Mercury continued to blast from the small 2006 iPod. One of the bandits giddily skipped over to a large speaker from 3001, causing the song to blast even louder from there.

"BISMILLAH!"

Excalibur came down and sliced off Luc's right fingers, causing his scream to fill the air.

A shot from a plasma pistol blasted off his left.

"OH, BLOODY GIN, TOPS, HE'S HAD A GOOD ROILING LOT, HE HAS! BUZZ THE POOR SOUL BACK!" roared the leader in foreign slang from foreign times and foreign lands.

A bandit staggered up to Luc, gripping him by the shoulder. The bandit was dressed in the robes of a Shaolin monk, the earphones of a Walkman blasting more Bohemian Rhapsody into his ears. He splashed one last bottle of liquor on the poor kidnapped victim's face, then quickly dialed away on his vortex manipulator.

There was a noise.

Everything disappeared.

The music was gone.

All of the bandits but one were gone.

The fires, the foreign technology, the swinging lights, they were all gone.

"Ha!" cackled the bandit, "Jolly Ellery to you, common!"

The bandit let go of him, still cackling. The noise came again, and suddenly the bandit was gone.

Luc staggered back. He was still dripping with blood, his once expensive clothes now soiled with sweat and liquor, his face haggard and terrified. He was in an alleyway somewhere, the walls all white, millions of voices buzzing about him. A market.

He stumbled out, nearly tripping. He bumped into a woman in rags, who shoved him back into the shack of a vendor.

The vendor cursed him loudly in a foreign language, speaking with his fingers.

Luc swung around wildly, staring with insane eyes at the alien. His mouth was still dripping with all the liquor that had been shoved down his mouth, his ears were still replaying that same blasted song that had been playing all this time.

"Galileo, galileo," he muttered.

He staggered back.

He tripped.

Luc's head hit the floor, drool swinging out of his mouth.

Luc Rinjaen, billionaire, was lying dead, drunk, and tortured in the market.

-BREAK-

The first victim The Doctor had encountered had been named Paul. Paul, like all the other victims so far, had been wealthy.

The apartment certainly showed it, The Doctor thought.

"Torture victims. Now breaking and entering," he muttered as he closed the door, pocketing his Sonic, "Not a proper way to start my new me, really."

The Doctor had travelled back to a day before Paul's death. Unfortunately, he wasn't here to prevent the aristocrat's unfortunate and painful demise, paradoxes were never a good idea. No, he was just here to investigate.

Time-travelling thieves.

That was a new one.

Other than himself, of course, but he tried to refer to himself as a thief as little as possible.

"Then again, now I'm breaking and entering," he thought, his mind going back to the aforementioned subject.

Of course, he did that a lot, so doing it once more didn't really make him any more of a thief. Especially if he didn't take anything.

The Doctor went through the house, checking through cabinets, throwing out the clothes and patting the wood for any hidden objects. He Soniced a safe, unlocking it. All that was inside were a laser pistol and a substantial amount of money. He'd checked through the closets, throwing out the shirts and jackets, sending expensive leather shoes flying over his shoulders as he checked the bottoms. He even went through the kitchen, sending knives and forks through the air, even a plate or two crashing against the wall, before finally stopping in the living room, stumped.

He exhaled, setting the space between his thumb and index on either hand on his waist, frowning. He looked around. Finally, as a last resort, he whipped out his Sonic Screwdriver again, pointing it up and sweeping it across the entire ceiling.

There was a click.

A small square opened up.

The Doctor's eyebrows rose.

Jogging over to the square, the Timelord peered up into the darkness. There appeared to be a large duffel bag up there.

He sighed.

"In retrospect, when I was making the flying dog, I really should have thought of flying shoes," he muttered.

A few seconds later, he had fetched a ladder from a closet and placed it underneath the secret compartment in the ceiling. Climbing to the top, he reached into the compartment with both hands and pulled the duffel bag out, carefully climbing down and setting the duffel bag on the glass table in front of the couch.

The Doctor unzipped the bags.

His eyebrows rose again.

Diamonds.

Lots and lots of diamonds.

Faberge eggs, as well, in small Ziploc bags. There was even a small, royal dagger, studded with diamonds in the hilt of made of gold, the blade shining stainless steel.

And at the very top?

A pair of gloves.

"Paul, you little thief," The Doctor muttered.

There was a noise.

The Doctor looked up.

There stood a man dressed in bright gold, embroided attire. It was mostly silk, velvet gloves on his hands, his jacket frilly and sporting shining gold buttons. He wore a masquerade mask, that of a demon.

"Why, you're a right growing little Twist, aren't you?" the man asked.

The Doctor furrowed his brow.

"What?" he asked.

The stranger suddenly stepped forward, raising up a blackjack that had been previously hidden behind his back and raising it to strike. The Doctor's eyes went wide.

He punched the man in the stomach, who staggered back, doubling over and coughing.

"I don't know if I've ever punched someone before," The Doctor said, staring, "I've hugged people. Kissed people – did a lot of that last time around. Pointed my Sonic Screwdriver at people. But can't remember the last time I punched someone."

The man regained his posture, gripping the blackjack tighter now, but keeping his distance. The Doctor had the feeling he wasn't used to getting punched.

"Right then, 'port the container," he said.

The Doctor looked at the duffel bag.

He looked up at the man.

"You mean this? You're a thief, too? By Jove, how many thieves are in this place?" he exclaimed.

The man took another swing. The Doctor stepped back and raised his Sonic, sending the blackjack flying.

"Oh, would you look at that? It's not wooden! That's my lucky day, then," The Doctor said.

The man looked at the Timelord bewildered, and then at his blackjack across the room. He took a swing with his fist, which The Doctor managed to step away from as well, and another, which The Doctor treated the same way.

"Right, I don't want to hurt you, but apparently I can punch people and if you make me I certainly will again!" The Doctor said.

These were the last words spoken before The Doctor felt the full impact of the fist flying into his face. He staggered back.

The man whipped out a knife.

"Right, then!" The Doctor shouted angrily, "I am about to punch you! Fair warning!"

He swung around right in time for the knife to plunge straight into his left heart.

He looked down at it.

He looked up at the thief.

The thief looked up at him.

There was a moment of silence.

"You know, I would have thought the immunity would have worn off by now. Been around, oh," The Doctor said, and checked his watch, "Twelve hours. Wears off after fifteen. Lucky for me, eh?"

He then punched the thief again, who staggered back.

"Agh!" The Doctor cried out, shaking his fist, "I'm starting to realize there's a reason why I don't punch people."

Pulling the knife calmly out of his chest, The Doctor continued, "One other good thing about regeneration.."

He grinned as he looked at the thief.

"The energy waves."

Throwing his arms back, the Timelord let loose a burst of energy, throwing the thief back. The blast alone was enough to knock him unconscious, but the hit against the head the thief achieved when he met the kitchen counter helped. The duffel bag flew back as well, sending diamonds spilling across the floor and Faberge eggs smashing.

The Doctor let his arms fall down by his side, his head lolling back down. He exhaled.

"Tabula rusa," he said, looking at the thief with another grin through his red glasses, "There are benefits."

The Doctor gathered up the diamonds and the still intact Faberge eggs, sticking them back in the duffel bag. Picking it up and looping it over his neck, he hoisted the unconscious thief up by the collar.

"Come on, with me," he said.

He pulled out his Sonic, setting it to Setting 44B3 and summoning the TARDIS. The familiar moaning began to fill the room.

"Tabula rusa," he repeated.

He grinned.

(To be continued in the next chapter! At first I was planning on making this whole mystery one chapter, like an episode, but decided it would be better for each 'episode' to be divided into a chapter or two, except if short or too important for cliffhangers. I'll try and upload a new chapter every day if possible, maybe more on weekends. By the way, if you were wondering, 'tabula rusa' is Latin for 'scraped tablet' as in a blank slate. Thanks for reading!)


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